


(Variations on) General Taylor

by ExpressAndAdmirable



Series: The Heroes of Light [64]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Final Fantasy I
Genre: Bards Being Bards, Breakfast, Drow, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Self-Reflection, Team as Family, Tiefling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 16:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13685517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpressAndAdmirable/pseuds/ExpressAndAdmirable
Summary: Sol's vengeance is fulfilled and she begins to learn how to live without it. Contains: grief.





	(Variations on) General Taylor

**Author's Note:**

> Movement I was written as a response to a private piece written by Sol's player.

I.

They waited for her in the main hall, clustered outside the antechamber, guarding their sister [friend, companion, lover, family] in her grief. They tended to each other’s wounds with practiced precision, heavy silence muting the sounds of breath and stinging sutures and soldiers’ boots against glass. If they heard the wracking sobs from behind the crystalline walls, or if they imagined them, none turned their head to look. They did not need to see, did not need to hear. That they remained, present in their vigil, was enough.

The sorcerer rubbed his palm with his thumb, contemplating the crystal within and the finale of his trial. The angel settled down beside the warrior and held his aged hand. The monk shined the edge of his weapon, wiping it clean of blood and memory. The bard closed her eyes. The lieutenants, sergeants, footsoldiers and guards paid no mind to one small corner of their twilight world.

The bard began to sing, low and soft, barely rising above the silence. A funeral song. A song she had not sung since the loss of one of their own. A general, carried to his burying ground, laid to rest with all the respect befitting a hero. The angel remembered the song from home, and when the bard reached the first chorus, a second voice joined her. Through the haze of injury, the warrior nodded his head. The monk tapped a simple rhythm on the floor with his fingertips. The sorcerer found himself humming the tune, drawn from his reverie by the synergy surrounding him. Together, they created, and they waited.

The elf [general arbiter drow] appeared in the doorway of the antechamber, her cheeks stained with tears, her head high. In wordless harmony, the bard and the angel offered her their hands, and she took each in hers, a look of quiet contentment on her face. She knew who and what she was. She knew a new chapter was beginning.

They stood, five Heroes, and welcomed their sixth.

 

II.

There were no more goodbyes. No more tears, no words left unsaid. The tale was over. But still, lingering, there was grief.

Twenty years ago, there had been grief. Grief, accompanied by roiling, searing rage, then by a cold fury that eventually supplanted it entirely. The betrayal of a monarch mingled with the pain of a love discarded and tempered sorrow into singular sharpened purpose. This grief was different; devoid of its anger, it simply existed, a heavy, pale hollowness that seeped like fog through the chambers of her heart. Her task was done, her oath fulfilled, the infection excised from her city and her soul. All that remained were aftershocks.

She existed in reverie for only a short while before falling into deep, dreamless sleep. She woke disoriented, her room strange and unfamiliar, and it took her several long moments to recognise the mechanical hum of the ship. A place of safety housing her place of solace. A misty rain waited patiently at the edges of her consciousness, and as she stretched into wakefulness, she acknowledged the creeping grief. She pulled the bed’s second pillow to her chest and curled around it, breathing in the scent of clove and nutmeg that permeated the fabric, and allowed the wave to wash over her. It would pass in time. Until then, she closed her eyes and gave it its space.

Somewhere in the room, there was coffee. The thought reached through the haze, drawing her back to the bed and the blanket and the hunger in her belly. She wondered vaguely what time it was. Releasing the pillow, she rolled over to face the alcove in the wall that housed the doors to other small chambers. There, on the wooden shelf, sat a round metal lid and a mug covered by a tea saucer. Atop the lid stood a small, white sentry: the paper wolf.

Slowly, twenty years of aches settling deep into her bones, she rose from the bed and stepped into the alcove. Setting the wolf aside with delicate reverence, she lifted the metal lid. Three slices of toast greeted her, holes cut into their centres and filled with cooked egg. Tiny cups of salt, pepper and milk sat to one side, nestled against the toast to keep from tipping. Beneath the saucer, black coffee waited, tendrils of steam unfurling toward her and releasing their dark aroma into the room. She had slept heavily indeed.

Lifting the plate with one hand and the coffee with the other, she paused before she could turn back toward the bed. Hidden beneath the plate sat a folded paper heart, barely the size of a gold piece. The corners of her mouth twitched into a smile. After she ate, she would return the wolf to its home inside her gambeson and find a place to rest the heart. Then she would go back to sleep for awhile longer.

The storm would clear in time.

**Author's Note:**

> Title song by Great Big Sea.
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr at @expressandadmirable for a proper table of contents for the Heroes campaign, commissioned character art, text-based roleplay snippets and more!


End file.
